


Home Again

by thesirensong



Series: Tumblr Prompts I've Completed [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Moxiety - Freeform, Chubby Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Trans Male Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, deceit has a prosthetic eye, familial dark sides - Freeform, father deceit, remus is adopted, this is more familial anxceit centric but thats just kinda where the inspiration took me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22538827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesirensong/pseuds/thesirensong
Summary: Virgil hasn't been home in years. He really hopes his dad doesn't hate him as much as he thinks he should.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit Sanders
Series: Tumblr Prompts I've Completed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621747
Comments: 8
Kudos: 378





	Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is a request from my tumblr afulldeckofaces!! It ended up being a LOT longer than I'd originally intended but I'm really proud of how it turned out so I'm putting it here too!!

Virgil hesitated in front of the building, looking up at the apartment complex with a nervous frown. He hasn’t been here in years, having run away from his dad and his brother (adopted brother, he wonders if Remus still tries to make the distinction) to go to college, travel the world, figure himself out.

It wasn’t like they’d been bad to him or anything, Virgil had just… needed to get away from the cramped apartment and the same people he’d seen his whole life who’d known him as someone entirely different before he’d left.

Briefly, Virgil wondered if his dad or brother would recognize him with the undercut and purple hair and the weight he’d gained with the food he’d explored as he bounced from place to place with people who liked his company while he tried to figure himself out.

With a deep breath, he stepped forward and pressed his finger against the buzzer for his dad’s apartment.

“Who is it?”

Virgil swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat upon hearing his dad’s voice.

“Uh… hey, dad.”

The speaker was quiet, but Virgil heard the signature click of the door unlocking and he hurried to pull it open.

The elevator ride to the basement was almost suffocating, with how quiet it was. He would’ve taken the stairs, if Virgil didn’t have suitcase with him. The speakers that used to play old pop music on loop must’ve given out.

Walking to his dad’s apartment door felt like a walk to the gallows to Virgil. He felt this smothering sense of doom hanging over his head, cause fuck his dad and brother must be so pissed at him. Virgil had left six years ago with nothing more than a letter saying he’d be fine but wanting to see what’s out there. And then he just didn’t keep in contact with them.

Not that they didn’t try. For months after he’d initially left, they’d blown up his phone almost daily. Begging him to come or to at least call them to let them know he was okay. He never did, and sometimes he still got drunk texts from his brother wondering where he was and if he still cared about them.

Those texts are honestly why Virgil was here right now, that and his current boyfriend convincing him to at least try to reconnect, regardless of his fears.

He was hovering in front of the door now, chewing on one of his nails before a chip of black nail polish made its way into his mouth and he screwed his face up in disgust, pulling his hand away.

Here goes nothing, Virgil guessed.

Three firm taps against the door, and then Virgil was waiting. He found it oddly symbolic, the way the wait seemed to drag on. Whether or not his dad would be willing to let him into his family again.

Fuck, being a writer was making him overthink this, this is stupid.

Virgil was about to turn away, to go back to the hotel where his boyfriend was staying for the time being, when the door opened and suddenly his limbs were locking up.

God damn it, he was still shorter than his already really fucking short dad.

“A-” his dad stopped when Virgil instinctively flinched at the start of his dead-name.

“…Name?”

Virgil gave a sheepish but grateful smile, pulling a sleeve further over his hand so he could rub his fingers over the textured fabric of the jacket cuff.

“Virgil,” he answered, getting a nod in response as his dead stepped aside.

He hesitated, because he always hesitated, but he really wanted to talk to his family again, so Virgil stepped inside the tiny apartment.

“So uh… where’s Remus?”

“He moved out two years ago. Should still come by for dinner tonight, though.”

Virgil flinched at the dig, not missing the bitterness in his father's voice. He was getting a feeling this conversation wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. Not that he came in here expecting his dad to be all smiles to see him again, he always was in the habit of holding long grudges.

It was quiet for a few moments, Virgil struggling to come up with something to say.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Virgil snapped his eyes to his dad’s, taking note of the prosthetic eye being a new style. Was that a snake pupil? He didn’t answer the question, brows furrowed in confusion.

“I mean, I would sure hope so, seeing as you’re finally home after six years, but I thought I’d ask. Whatever you were looking for, did you find it?”

Feeling his heart sinking in his chest, Virgil looked to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, shoulders hunching forward as he picked out his words.

“I… think so.”

There was a beat of silence, and then footsteps, a chair scraping against the floor, a soft thump of weight settling.

“You think? It’s been six years, Virgil, and you can’t even come home positive you’ve become who you wanted to be?”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line, wincing at the question because honestly, his dad was  _ right _ . Virgil really should be more sure of himself by now.

“I’ve found out… a lot, about myself,” Virgil starts, continuing to avoid looking at his dad, “obvious things aside, I learned I really like writing, and that I’m pretty good at it. Learned I don’t really like ocean travel, that I hate air travel even more, but I think Europe is pretty cool and South America is even better.”

While Virgil talked, he looked around the room. He noted the pictures, tried not to be hurt at how few of them had him in them even if he knew seeing himself before he started transitioning would be difficult to look at.

“I figured out I was gay, after the whole gender crisis. And I learned what it felt like to love and be loved,” he said.

Virgil would’ve continued, but he made the mistake of looking at his dad then and seeing the hurt and anger in his good eye, practically melting any affection or caring that might’ve been there before away from his expression.

“So you don’t think we loved you?”

“What? No that’s not-”

“Really? Because that certainly sounds like what you were saying.”

Virgil felt his throat close up, and he shut his eyes as he struggled to breathe through it. It wasn’t the type of breathing difficulty he experienced when he was having a panic attack, but God did the difference really matter? It hurt just the same.

“No, dad. That’s not what I was saying. I was… I’ve had so many flings, in the last several years. Some of them were disasters, others were like walking on clouds until the clouds ran out. I just-” Virgil sighed, running his fingers through his hair, pushing his bangs back and letting them fall in front of his eyes as his hand moved to the back of his head.

“Listen, I thought about you guys all the time. I’d honestly only planned to stay gone for a year, but when that time stamp had come closer I got… I got so fucking scared. I’d basically cut you guys out at that point, and I was worried you would turn me away before I got the chance to explain myself.”

Virgil’s exhaustion was suddenly overwhelming, and he had to pull out a chair from the table to collapse in before his legs gave out from under him.

He wondered if the silence would ever stop drowning him.

“I wouldn’t have. Still won’t, if the fact you’re currently sitting at my kitchen table means anything,” his dad started, making Virgil look up at him with tired eyes, “I was- am pissed. It’s hard not to be bitter when my baby g- ah… when my son up and leaves two nights after he graduates high school with no warning and no goodbye outside of a letter I found on his pillow.”

Virgil felt his lower lip wobble as tears built in his eyes, and he clamped it between teeth in an attempt to keep himself from crying.

“Virgil I missed you so much for so long. At one point I had almost convinced myself you had died somehow.”

His dad slumped over the table, putting his head in his hands to keep his face from view.

Virgil rubbed the tears away from his eyes, sucking in a deep breath as he quietly moved seats to sit right next to his dad, leaning against him the way he used to when he was overwhelmed and just needed the physical reminded someone was there.

He felt his dad let out a watery laugh, shifting until he was able to wrap his arms tight around Virgil’s shoulders, nuzzling his face into the fluff that was Virgil’s hair.

“I’m still mad at you, and you know I’m going to be for a while, but… if you want to stay for dinner, I’m sure Remus would be ecstatic to see you after he gives up trying to murder you for leaving.”

Virgil snorted, his own arms already wrapped around his dad’s torso.

“Still destructive, then?” he asked, relishing the contact with the older man, contact he’d been longing for for years.

“I think he’s gotten worse as he’s gotten older, honestly.”

There was still a lot of issues Virgil had to talk over with his family, and his boyfriend would definitely want to meet them no matter how much Virgil would inevitably try to steer him off it because his family was unsettling at the best of times and Patton was a puffball.

But at least he’d started mending the gap he’d torn between them.


End file.
